This gets to the heart of what’s fascinating about the two’s very public performance of marriage and parenthood: What exactly are they trying to prove? Williams has more money than she could ever need, and Ohanian has millions of his own. So why are they so intent on packaging their family life into social media–friendly morsels of content?

“Wholesome” isn’t about tame lyrics, clean jokes, or an untarnished image. Wholesome is about remembering to bring a bottle of Malbec over to your girlfriend’s mom’s house because it’s her favorite. Wholesome is not the saccharine cheesiness of playing your date an Ed Sheeran song, it’s picking up her favorite food when you’re at the grocery store (or going across town to the Korean grocery store to get Laura Jean her favorite drink for the long bus ride. Swoon.) It’s not loud, performative gestures—it’s steady affection. It’s about asking someone out on a date and taking care of all the planning instead of just seeing what happens on Friday night and hoping your crush is free. Wholesome isn’t just taking care of tasks, though; it’s a perfect cocktail of confidence and vulnerability.

And women certainly don’t have the energy to teach a sensitive brooding 90s leading man to care about people other than himself. We’re asking for you to be done maturing by the time you get to us now. We’re asking you to put in an effort with our friends just as often as you put in effort to make us come.

The men who do find themselves in my life share one common denominator with the women: They are eager to have a conversation, or rather as many conversations as we need, about desire and consent. It means that sex is always safe, even if it’s purposefully dangerous. It means that sex at its very worst is mediocre and lacking connection, rather than traumatizing or scary.

But finding the right ways to talk about sex, rather than focusing on finding the one and only person I should have sex with, has kept me unharmed so far.

But you know what I don’t really trust? What I’ve never actually trusted with any women I’ve been with? Her feelings.

So how do we remedy this? And can it even be remedied? I don’t know. This distrust of women’s feelings is so ingrained, so commonplace that I’m not even sure we (men) realize it exists. I can do one thing, though. The next time my wife tells me how upset she is about something I’m not sure she should be that upset about, trust her.

One evening as we cuddled in my apartment, with me droning on about my man troubles and career fears, he said, “We get so fixated on the job we want or the person we’re dating because we don’t think there will be another. But there’s always another.”

And her unwillingness to tell Lawrence what she wanted might very well have been, at least in part, because of a lifetime of internalizing messages about how you do and don’t behave should you be so fortunate as to find yourself in a relationship with a “good black man.”

Essentially, Issa’s inability to communicate the years of unspoken issues was the relationship’s downfall, at least partly. Instead, she convinced herself she wanted Lawrence because a woman’s worth is always tied to having a man. Her own best friend told her she didn’t deserve Lawrence. Issa was beaten over the head with the idea that Lawrence was a “good man” so she’d best be appreciative of scraps lest she find herself alone with a dozen cats. As if being alone is the worst possible thing that could happen to a woman. This societal pressure on women to find and keep a man is why women settle all the time because it’s better to have a piece of a man with potential than to be alone.

The most predictable storyline of the season was Lawrence having sex with Tasha — the one who listened and encouraged his ideas. Because all a lazy unmotivated man needs is a woman to build him up. Yet men are never expected to build women up.

The Lawrence and Issa saga challenges our ideas about gender in relationships. It specifically points to the double standard of cheating. A woman cheating deserves revenge while a man’s cheating deserves forgiveness.

This unconscious discomfort with making money is not unique to Nichols. Self-made millionaire and author Steve Siebold explains that middle and lower class families tend to pass on the belief that money is scarce — hard to earn and harder to keep — and as a result, the average person sees money as their enemy.

“She said, 'You need to figure out what's going on with your sexuality because you can't hate yourself anymore,'" he said, as Us Magazine reported, explaining how Mucci had "spearheaded" his coming out process.

If you are devoted to your career goals and would like a man who will support that, you’re just doing what men throughout the ages have done: placing a safe bet. // It’s not because they’re “opting out” of the workforce when they have kids, but because they’re allowing their partners’ careers to take precedence over their own. // Of course, marital arrangements aren’t the only force holding women back. Part of the reason these women aren’t advancing at the same rate as their male counterparts is that after they have kids, they get “mommy-tracked.” // Take a look at the current crop of female CEOs: A lot of them have husbands who don’t work. Xerox CEO Ursula Burns took a page out of Hirshman’s book and joked at a 2013 conference, “The secret [to success] is to marry someone 20 years older.” Her husband retired as she was hitting her career stride, allowing him to take primary responsibility for their kids.

The challenge of 2016 and beyond is to make an honest stab at intimacy in whatever form it might come, to treat each other more gently and to prioritize what makes us feel complete rather than what makes us sound cool.

I’ve seen it repeated again and again, this idea that serial infidelity is born out of the rigors of monogamy, and not out of a brokenness within ourselves. >>“People just want the easy information. Is it right or is it wrong? Should I do it or should I not do it? And I think — there is nothing that is right or wrong, or correct or incorrect. Nothing is that easy. And people just want the shortcut so they don’t have to think.” >>I sometimes think that people would rather be normal than happy. When it comes to sex and relationships, especially, we are far more fixated on what is socially acceptable than on what gives us pleasure. >>No one can save you, and a relationship will not fix what is broken within you — rather, what is broken within you will expand until your relationship matches your interior. And, most important of all: You have to be happy with the relationship you are in, not the relationship you hope will one day exist.

I have a thing for white guys. And writing that last sentence makes me feel gross, like I’m a traitor, or a self-hating black woman. I know it's wrong to think this way, to focus on being with a white guy as the ultimate goal in my love life. And I have been trying, very hard, to resist the notion that I must aspire to getting a partner who has lighter skin than I do.

Be honest with yourself. Choose the battles you are willing to fight and stay true to your decision. If the other person is on board, great. If not, keep it moving. >> When drama comes to take you backwards, say bye Felicia! Acknowledge how far you’ve come and the strides you’ve made and celebrate you.

Vulnerability is initially terrifying, but quickly addictive in its own way. You hold your breath, do the risky thing, realise you didn’t die, and more often than not you notice how much richer all your relationships become (friendships included). The price is that you’re also always exposed, to the best and worst that can happen to you.

The Law of “Fuck Yes or No” states that when you want to get involved with someone new, in whatever capacity, they must inspire you to say “Fuck Yes” in order for you to proceed with them. // The Law of “Fuck Yes or No” also states that when you want to get involved with someone new, in whatever capacity, THEY must respond with a “Fuck Yes” in order for you to proceed with them. // Attractive, non-needy, high self-worth people don’t have time for people who they are not excited to be with and who are not excited to be with them.

Complaining is something I have no tolerance for. If you’re in control of it, you have the ability to fix it. Where is the value in complaining? Assess the problem, find the solution, and get on the offense. >> I listen to other people. I’m thrilled to hear your headaches, and to try and come up with a solution. But I have no interest in giving you mine. And I truly believe this is something that can be developed in a person. Listen more than you talk. Make a conscious effort to ask more questions of the people around you. Make sure the buck stops with you. Remember what others have done with you. These are all places you can start; and you’ll only move forward from there, I promise.

Male friendships often center on groups and activities. But without strong one-on-one ties, men are more likely to feel isolated when romantic partnerships fail or don't happen at all. In this case, fiction mirrors reality: Adult men have the fewest friends of any demographic. And as more and more people delay marriage or forgo it entirely, men are often left without strong social networks to rely on for support.

The trick to getting over it? Get more addicted to TRYING than you are afraid of failing. Failing rarely matters. In most areas of life, we can just try another approach. If the aspiring novelist writes a pile of junk, he can always throw it in the bin. Or write another. Except this time he’ll have all the added experience of that last attempt to draw from. Get addicted to experiences, and you’ll have a real WHY that spurs you to be a trier, instead of the person who stays home or waits on the sidelines.

"How to Be a Woman's Best Sexy Friend" (You can read the original FB post here: http://on.fb.me/1S8eCr5) That particular article was primarily written for hetero men--but for anyone of any gender or sexual orientation, a Best Sexy Friend is a sexually experienced friend you can explore your sexuality within a loving, safe, ongoing, nurturing environment with continuity, without the pressures or ups-and-downs of a relationship, and without the randomness and emotional upheaval of the hook-up scene.